英语词汇cock and bull story的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

cock and bull story. This long, rambling, unlikely yarn, like the similar canard, takes its name from the barnyard. The phrase first appeared in about 1600 and has been constantly used ever since; even in classics like Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (1767), one of our most imaginative and whimsical novels, where the words end the book: “ ‘L—d’ said my mother, ‘what is this story all about.’ ‘—A COCK and a BULL,’ said Yorick—‘and one of the best of its kind, I ever heard.’ ” The ex- pression cock and bull story hasn’t been traced to the specific fa- ble where it originated, but it arose in all probability from a fantastic tale about a cock and bull who talked to each other in human language. Since people knew that such a conversation was impossible, they most likely labeled any incredible yarns cock and bull stories. The French have used the expression coq- à-l’âne—literally “cock to the donkey”—in the same sense as cock and bull for almost four centuries, too. But it is also the term for a satirical verse genre that ridicules the follies and vices of society, deriving in this sense from the old French proverbial expression c’est bien sauté du coq à l’âne, which signifies inco- herent speech or writing.

词汇	cock and bull story
词源	cock and bull story. This long, rambling, unlikely yarn, like the similar canard, takes its name from the barnyard. The phrase first appeared in about 1600 and has been constantly used ever since; even in classics like Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (1767), one of our most imaginative and whimsical novels, where the words end the book: “ ‘L—d’ said my mother, ‘what is this story all about.’ ‘—A COCK and a BULL,’ said Yorick—‘and one of the best of its kind, I ever heard.’ ” The ex- pression cock and bull story hasn’t been traced to the specific fa- ble where it originated, but it arose in all probability from a fantastic tale about a cock and bull who talked to each other in human language. Since people knew that such a conversation was impossible, they most likely labeled any incredible yarns cock and bull stories. The French have used the expression coq- à-l’âne—literally “cock to the donkey”—in the same sense as cock and bull for almost four centuries, too. But it is also the term for a satirical verse genre that ridicules the follies and vices of society, deriving in this sense from the old French proverbial expression c’est bien sauté du coq à l’âne, which signifies inco- herent speech or writing.
随便看	i swear i’ll kwill you it italian italian words in english italic type itch itching ears itchy trigger finger it didn’t jell it doesn’t go on all fours i throw a shoe at you it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle it might have been it must have been one of the nuts it rains on the just and unjust alike i trust it-s nothing trivial its it-s a great life if you don’t weaken it-s all in a day-s work it-s all over but the shouting it-s all worth it including the final crash it-s always the best swimmers that drown it-s a naive domestic burgundy without any breeding but i think you’ll be amused by its presumptions it-s a new ball game it-s chess not checkers